scribblinlenore | WIP: You Can Call Me Al

I'm feeling better today, although I took the day off because my stomach is still kind of iffy. And it gave me a chance to finish the first part of my Overboard-inspired WIP.

Title: You Can Call Me Al
Pairing: Clark/Lex
Rating: This part G, eventually NC-17
Category: AU, Romance
Summary: Lex gets lost, and Clark claims him.

Part: One

You Can Call Me Al
By Lenore

Part One

There's only one road in Blue Cove. It passes straight through the heart of town, past Tom Bramley's Shoe Repair and the recently opened Army-Navy surplus store, meandering out to Pete's plumbing parts plant and the heavily forested land beyond that. Route 12, the Federal Highway Administration calls it, but the townspeople have always known it as Old Jim Jarwell Road, a tribute to Blue Cove's founding patriarch. They're stubborn about it too, refusing to change the name on local maps. Blue Cove isn't the kind of place that has much use for interference from the federal government.

It isn't the kind of place, either, Clark would have imagined Pete settling after college. Everybody always just assumed he would stay in Kansas, a true native son. But when the opportunity came to invest in the plumbing parts plant, Blue Cove's only real industry, Pete didn't hesitate. He put down the money his parents had saved for him from the sale of the creamed corn factory and went into business for himself.

Seven years later, Pete is Mr. Blue Cove, the principal employer in town, president of the Chamber of Commerce, talk in the air of a possible run for mayor. Whenever Clark walks down the street with him, he's amazed by the number of people who come up to shake his hand. It's like being friends with a celebrity, a little strange, especially when Clark thinks back to the kid he knew in high school, dreaming up wacky schemes to meet girls, joining the football team so he wouldn't get beaten up. Pete, on the verge of thirty, is made of confidence, a man with serious responsibilities, a natural air of authority to him that wins people's trust.

This doesn't keep Clark from teasing him, of course. He's still Pete, and they've been friends too long for anything to change between them. Besides, he can't pass up the chance to see Pete bluster as he defends his adopted home.

"You know there's only one road for a reason," Clark likes to kid him, "because this truly is a one-horse town."

Pete insists it's all a matter of geography, the way Blue Cove perches on the cliffs above the sea limiting its infrastructure options. "There's just no room for another road," he says. "This is the coast, man. You're just used to being landlocked, that's your problem."

These playful arguments usually end with a round of beers down at Shorty's Bowl-a-rama. The truth is that Clark likes Blue Cove well enough. It has all the reassuring rhythms of a small town, people get up early, there's only one of any kind of store, and nobody bothers to lock their doors. At the same time, it doesn't remind him of Smallville, the dull pounding of the waves and the screeching of sea birds as they circle the marina too exotic to his heartland sensibilities to make him think of home.

He's been doing his best to fit in, to become a true Blue-Covian like Pete. As he rumbles along in his truck over Old Jim Jarwell Road, passing by the five and dime with its big glass window, he waves to everybody strolling along the sidewalk, the way people do here, and they all wave back, although some of them look kind of confused. It's been six months, but Clark hasn't gotten to know that many of his new neighbors yet.

To be honest, Clark's life in Blue Cove is on the plain side--he spends his time fixing up his place, doing odd jobs to make ends meet, hanging out with Pete--and it makes him all the more aware of how complicated things had gotten back in Metropolis before he left. He'd wanted to help people, felt a responsibility to use his alien powers for some purpose. He just never anticipated how that impulse might careen out of control. By the end, he was working all day at the Planet, spending every night out patrolling, never sleeping, his senses on constant overdrive, the sound of human misery his ever-present companion.

When the call came that his parents had been in a serious accident, Clark was out playing the hero. His father died instantly in the five-car pileup, thrown through the truck's windshield, but his mother lingered a few hours at the hospital. There will always be possibilities that Clark has to consider, what-ifs he tortures himself with. If he'd been at home that night to get the call, maybe he could have seen her one last time, told her goodbye. If he hadn't been out trying to save other people, maybe he could have saved them.

Pete tells him all the time that this is crazy thinking, a twisted form of grief, and Clark is pretty sure he did go insane for a while after it happened. He never called the Planet to tell them he wasn't coming back, never went back to his apartment to pack up his things. He just walked away from that life, that distraction, like it never happened, and threw himself whole-heartedly into the farm.

It was the only thing that gave him any comfort, rote and physical, getting up at the same time, doing the same things, endlessly. The dull monotony of pitching hay and hammering fences and chugging over the fields on the tractor helped drown out thought. He had no desire to see anyone. Words were points of pain. He preferred silence. When the phone rang too insistently, he pulled it out of the wall, the bare wires dangling from the plaster. When his friends stopped by to check on him--Lois bringing his stuff from Metropolis and Lana dropping off food and Chloe there to listen--he fended them off with a terse "I'm fine," and went back to his mournful farming.

Days vanished in a numb blur of work, became weeks, then months. The farm began to show the strain of his one-man efforts, weeds choking the south pasture, hay moldering in the barn, shingles decaying on the roof of the house, ugly brown rings appearing on the ceiling of his bedroom whenever it rained. It was too much work for one person, at least one person working at human speed, and he stopped using his powers after that night and that missed phone call. It doesn't make sense, he knows, to blame them for what happened. But then, it doesn't make sense either that his parents are gone.

The day Pete showed up at the farm, he was pitching hay in the barn. He didn't stop for hellos, just said, "I'm fine. You didn't have to come."

Pete stood his ground, lifting his chin, stubborn the way he could be sometimes. "You are not fine, Clark. Cutting yourself off from the people who care about you, walking away from everything, turning yourself into the Boo Radley of Smallville…none of that is fine."

Anger flared in his chest. "I'm taking care of the farm! The way my parents would have wanted me to."

"This isn't about what your parents wanted, Clark, and we both know that." His tone grew gentler, "It's not your fault what happened, and they wouldn't ask you to give up your life for their dream."

Clark stared down at the ground. "I just-- I can't go back to Metropolis. There's nothing there for me." He took a breath and held it. "This is all I have now."

Pete shook his head. "That's not true, and being here," he gave Clark a long, appraising look, "it isn't doing you any good. Why not sell this and go somewhere else?"

"I couldn't do that. I wouldn't know where--"

Pete held up his hand. "Hear me out. There's an old vineyard and winery in Blue Cove. I was thinking you could move out there and take it over."

Clark laughed, for the first time since his parents died, and it felt almost painful. "I don't know anything about making wine, Pete. I couldn't just--"

"Sure you could," Pete insisted. "You already know how to run a farm, and you could learn the rest. I'm serious here, man. It's a good opportunity. It would be great for the town, create jobs, bring in tourists. And it would be good for you too. A fresh start somewhere completely different, where there's no history." He smiled. "Where you just happen to have an old friend."

Clark clenched and unclenched his hands on the pitchfork. The beam above the barn door was starting to sag, in serious need of repair, the tractor had stopped working again just that morning. The place was falling apart around him. "I'll have to sleep on it," he said at last.

Pete laid a hand on his shoulder. "I'm staying at my folks. I'll stop by tomorrow."

It probably wasn't the most rational decision Clark ever made, but maybe saving yourself is always more a matter of instinct than intellect. Pete helped him put an ad in the Smallville Gazette, and the local farmers came to make their bids, soft words of condolence worked in among the business talk. When Clark turned over the deed to Mr. Haggerty, the man told him, "I'll do right by your dad, don't you worry none."

So here Clark is, in Blue Cove, and most days he doesn't regret it, although fixing up the winery has proven more of a challenge than he even imagined, a stack of bills piling up on the kitchen table, the money from the sale of the farm almost tapped out. Fortunately, he's friends with the most well-connected guy in town. Pete calls two or three times a week with the name of someone who needs odd jobs done. Clark has discovered he's remarkably handy, at everything from fixing old can openers to framing in rooms, stuff he must have picked up from his dad without even realizing it. He wishes he could have shown his father this while he was still alive, that they're more alike than they ever suspected.

When Pete called about this latest job, though, Clark really thought he was kidding. "You'll never guess who pulled into port. The Luthor family on their corporate yacht, and they have some kind of woodworking emergency. Called over to the Chamber of Commerce looking for somebody who could do the job fast. I said you'd be right over."

"I don't know anything about repairing a boat--"

"Ship, and I got the idea this is more on the decorative side."

"A decorative emergency?"

"They're Luthors, Clark," Pete said, with a little laugh. Now that he's managed to turn his plant into the largest supplier of plumbing parts in the Northwest, his bitterness about the creamed corned factory has finally receded.

"I'm still not sure--"

"They don't know you," Pete said reasonably, "don't know you used to live in Metropolis, and anyway, they're not going to chat up the hired help. I'm sure they'll barely even acknowledge that you exist."

"You're really convincing me," Clark said dryly.

Pete laughed. "Just go. It's good money."

So here he is. He gets out, grabs his toolbox from the back of the truck, and checks the piece of paper where he wrote down the details. Slip 37. He asks the harbormaster, and he points the way to the largest ship in port, its brass fittings shining in the late morning sun. Clark takes a deep breath and heads down the dock.

He finds Lionel Luthor himself waiting on the foredeck, feet planted, hands on his hips. When he spots Clark, he demands to know, "Are you the carpenter?"

"Yes, sir," Clark says, falling back into his old Midwestern mannerisms.

Luthor nods. "Come aboard then." He turns to head inside.

Clark just stares for a moment. The Luthors are Metropolis, and Metropolis…brings back so many memories.

Lionel Luthor glances impatiently over his shoulder. "Is there a problem, young man?"

Clark lets out his breath. He can see exactly how this job is going to go. "Coming."

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

rose-etta.livejournal.com

turning yourself into the Boo Radley of Smallville
oh, yes, love this - great reference line.

Gee, so Lex never hung out in Smallville in this one, eh?

I like alternate meet-cutes...this will be interesting. Oh, yes, I remember you mentioning your inspiration for this!

*is even more interested*
*g*

From:

Not a homecoming queen

WIP: You Can Call Me Al

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